The world's top 100 universities, 2010

Cambridge is now the world's top university, according to a new report, which knocks Harvard from the top spot. See how it compares with the world's top 100 universities here
•Get the 2010 data•Get the 2009 data

World's top 100 universities: Cambridge University has moved into first place. Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA

Harvard today forfeits first place to the University of Cambridge in a league table of the world's top institutions, the first time in the list's seven year history that the Ivy League university has been knocked off the number one spot.

The QS table is based on measures of research quality, graduate employability, teaching and how international the faculties and student bodies are.

Harvard was still most popular among the 5,000 employers polled worldwide, but Cambridge was voted best for research quality in a survey of 15,000 academics and took overall first place. The rankings also use citation counts from a database of academic publishing.

The world's top universities - and how their rankings have changed

The Times Higher Education magazine, which is publishing its own global university rankings next week, is no longer collaborating with QS. The magazine is concerned that these rankings rely too heavily on subjective surveys of scholars and employers and not enough on hard indicators of excellence. The THE's new rankings are expected to contain disappointing news for some prestigious British institutions.

Some of the key UK losers this year are:

• University of Oxford down to 6 from 5 last year•University of Edinburgh, down two places to 22• University of Lancaster, down from 161 to 182

However, some are doing better, notably University of Durham, up to 92 from 103 last year.

Thanks to QS, we've got the top 100 for you to play with - you can download it below. What can you do with the data?